Promises Made by Text
by derxder
Summary: A deleted text message and a lonely best friend.  Axel has been gone for more than a year now, doing what? Roxas has no idea, all he cares about is forgetting the red head that left him behind. AxelxRoxas. AU
1. Of Trying to Forget

A/N: It's been a long long long time since I last attempted fanfiction (my last attempt being a few years ago with a Fruits Basket fic titled: 'Snow in Summer' xD). Hopefully I can stick with this one until the end unlike my other attempt. :)

and I do have to admit: I never really understood the AxelxRoxas pairing until I played 358/2 (which I'm still not done with .) but after getting through some of that I can easily see why people pair them together xD.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading! :)

He stared at the text message sent from his best friend 'I'll be back soon promise :)'. He frowned angrily at his phone and felt rage boil within him. The message had been sent nearly 6 months ago, no other messages or phone calls had followed it, it was as if the sender had just disappeared from the face of the planet.

"Stupid" He muttered to himself and pressed the delete button, permanently ridding himself of that last bit of the red head that remained with him.

"Hey Rox" she prodded the sleeping boy once more in the ribs. He stirred and looked up from his place at the desk.

"What?" he asked sleepily, staring up at Xion.

She gestured to the emptying classroom around them.

"Class is over" she answered softly and held out a small slip of pink paper to him.

"Teacher told me to give this to you" she smiled apologetically.

He took the detention slip, he got one nearly every week now. And gathered his belongings before standing up and following Xion out of the classroom.

Once out of the classroom she pulled him to the side of the hallway, out of the way of the traffic the students created. He already knew what she would say, he got the lecture often enough from her nowadays.

"Roxas, I know that it's not exactly easy to handle that Axel is gone, but you've got to pull yourself together! Olette and I are worried about you, and they don't say so, but I'm sure Hayner and Pence are as well. Look, I know Axel said that he'd be back but it's been almost a year since hes left, and he hasn't tried to contact either one of us since then!" she brushed her short hair behind her ears.

"I know it might not seem fair, but I think it's time you accepted that he's not coming back to this boring hole in the wall." She gave him a sad smile.

"I miss him too" she finally said.

"But I've learned to deal with that, I think it's time you did too."

She pulled the detention form from his clenched fists "Besides" she smiled playfully as she waved it in front of his nose.

"I'm sure your mother is tired of seeing these things so often".

The school bell rang, signaling the beginning of the last class of the day a panicked look crossed Xions face.

"Oh no! Rox I'll see you later 'kay?" she shouted, halfway down the hall already as she raced to her classroom.

He watched her speed down the hall before shoving the pink form into his pants pocket. But instead of heading towards his next class, English, he bee lined for the nearest exit, a side door where he was unlikely to be spotted leaving the building. He pushed the heavy door open and stood in the warm sunlight for a moment before starting the short walk to his home.

"I don't miss him" he muttered to himself, kicking at a dandelion, sending the white seeds soaring into the breeze..


	2. Of Burning Parts of You

A/N: It's me again :) this time with part 2.

Just want to give a quick Thank You to Vithian for giving me a ton of advice on the last part, reminding me of little things that I'd somehow forgotten applies to writing.

Thank you for reading :)

Also: I don't own any aspect of Kingdom Hearts, but I think I'm fine with that.

Anyone viewing the home from the outside would have pointed out that, while the lights were all off, somebody was indeed home. From the room upstairs, that faced towards the clock tower a few blocks over, came the flashing of light and the occasional muffled bang. And if one stayed around long enough they might have seen the kitchen light flicker on, and a blonde teen wander in to make himself more popcorn.

Roxas had been left alone for the night, again. And his way of passing the night wasn't to do homework or hang out quietly with friends. But to watch movies, most likely of the violent gory type, at a volume most would find unbearable.

He lay on his bed, belly down with his blond head propped at the foot board with a pillow. Occasionally he shoved his hand into a large bowl and pulled out a handful of popcorn, movie theater butter kind, drenched in even more butter added after the popping.

Nights like this weren't too unusual for Roxas, his father was constantly out of town on business and his mother was working another night shift at the small clinic further in town. He hadn't shown his mother, the parent he got his feminine appearance from, his detention. Instead he had signed her name on it himself and stuffed it back into his bag.

His homework lay scattered on a desk near his bed, left undone and, as the hour grew later, more and more likely to be turned in as late assignments.

The boy shoved another small handful of popcorn into his mouth and stared at the screen intently as the yellow clad heroin of the movie finished off the first person on her "hit list" in a modern day sword fight.

A quick glance at the clock told him that it was nearing midnight and that he should probably get to bed soon if he planned on waking up for school the next day.

He sighed before quickly deciding he'd just be "sick" tomorrow. After all, there was still an hour or so left of his movie, and it wasn't like he was going to do his homework anyway and his detention was for Thursday, the day after tomorrow.

So he stayed on the bed, eating popcorn and thinking about nothing but what was going on in the film. That's why the volume level was so high, it was hard to think about anything when loud noises assaulted ones ears.

But all things come to an end, the credits started to roll, and even the credits eventually end.

Roxas reached for his remote and turned the television off, not bothering to eject the disc before hand. He stared for a moment at the last few inedible kernels of popcorn at the bottom of his bowl before setting the whole thing on the ground.

Groaning the boy rolled off the bed and made his way to his computer, he jiggled the mouse to wake it up and stared for a moment at his background picture, Xion had set it last time she had been over, a picture of himself and her. If somebody paid close attention they'd realize that there was someone who had been cut out of the picture to the right of Roxas, somebody who was a head taller than the other two and had their arm slung over Roxas' shoulders.

And it finally hit him how right Xion had been this whole time.

He had deleted the text message months ago but he had never really gotten over the hurt that came from the lie it told. The hurt of being lied to, and the pain of being left behind by your best friend and not being acknowledged at all after the fact. And while he had thought that deleting the message would have finally put the red-head out of his head for good, it had done nothing to put him at ease.

No, it was up to him to force himself to finally get over it.

He left the computer idling while he pulled open one of his drawers, digging around he finally found what he was looking for, a pack of paper that had been purchased for him for the new school year, but for some reason he found it was easier to beg paper from the other students rather than just bring his own.

He ripped the plastic off the sheets and pulled the first lined and hole punched piece of paper towards him, he glanced around, and quickly located a pen and started to write furiously, pressing so hard that he occasionally poked a hole through the thin sheets.

He filled the pages of every last memory he had of the older boy.

All the times he had slipped unnoticed into Roxas' room through the window to play video games all night and generally make a fool of himself.

The time He convinced Roxas to skip gym with him to go out and get ice cream, and how they had been caught when they were on their way back to the school.

And most importantly the last time Roxas had seen the red head before he left. The fight they had, Roxas no longer remembered what it had been about, and the angry vow to never speak to each other again.

He jotted down the words from the text message, somehow he still remembered them.

Once he was done he gathered the papers, all with small writing, covered back and front with his chicken scratch writing. And took them all, 24 sheets total, and started to head downstairs.

Once in the kitchen he set the papers on the counter and started digging around, he dug through the pots but decided that none were good for setting fire to something, a few minutes passed like this before Roxas slapped his forehead.

"The Grill!" He slammed the cabinet shut and instead flung open the cupboard under the sink, he grabbed for the lighter fluid and matches and stood up again.

The boy gathered his papers and headed through the back door and onto the porch. Hastily he pulled off the heavy black cover and then removed the lid and grill rack. There were still small chunks of charcoal that had not completely burned the last time a fire had been lit.

For a moment he hesitated, staring at the words in his hands. But finally he took a deep breath, dropped his memories in and spilled lighter fluid onto them.

He lit a match, stared at the flame for a split second before dropping it into the grill.

The paper was consumed in less than a minute, it would have burned fine without the lighter fluid, but he had wanted it to burn quickly, he no longer wanted those memories to be a part of him.

As he watched the sheets curl in on themselves and fall apart into black dust he didn't feel the regret he expected. Instead, relief washed over him.

"Goodbye, Axel"

He gave a small smile as he watched the flames die down.

A/N: I also do not own Kill Bill.

And I hate butter popcorn D: give me kettle any day of the week!


	3. Of random IMs

**A/N: I just realized that for some reason the document up loader thing has been deleting my separations (between the notes and the actual story...I'm sorry about that, so from now on I'll just start bolding things. **

**On another note. I just used vanilla mint toothpaste for the first time in years, it was a wonderful experience. Just thought I'd share.**

**Also, I'm sorry if the release of the chapters is somewhat erratic, I'm not someone who sticks to a schedule :/ School starts soon and NaNo is coming up as well. So if this fic makes it to November don't expect any updates to it during that month xD.**

**Thank you for reading :)**

Morning came in a normal enough manner. Sunlight found ways to seep in through the small cracks in the plastic blinds, illuminating the bedroom just enough to see the sleeping boy.

His face was buried deep into a pillow, his legs tangled in sheets and his comforter had been kicked off the bed sometime during the night. Roxas slept in only his boxers, even during the winter time when cold spilled in from drafty windows.

Sighing in his sleep he slowly shifted onto his side and settled back down.

After taking care of his burning business the previous night he had trudged back upstairs, stripped down to his boxers and climbed into the bed at around 3 in the morning.

The clock now read 7:24.

Downstairs a key was shoved into the lock on the front door, and a tired looking woman stepped into the home. She had soft looking blonde hair, doe like brown eyes and a kind expression. She let her bag drop to the floor and she shut the door quietly behind her.

"Roxas" she called out, expecting to hear his greeting come from the dining room where he was normally eating breakfast at this time. But she received no such greeting. She frowned slightly and moved further into the home.

"Sweetheart?" she peeked into the dining room and sure enough, no Roxas.

Her frown deepened, temporarily ruining her beautiful face. "Roxas?" she called out again as she climbed the stairs. She stopped at his bedroom door, knocking softly before opening it up. She looked into the room at her sleeping boy.

She gave a small sigh of relief and let herself in.

"Roxas, sweetheart" she whispered as she moved towards the bed and sat on the edge. She gently shook his shoulder to rouse him. "Are you feeling okay? Is something wrong?"

He stared up at her for a full minute, sleep still obscuring his vision.

"Mom?" he finally managed to say.

She smiled at him and pulled back a stray strand of hair from his eyes.

"I'm fine" he finally said. "I just don't want to go to school today, that's all" Roxas smiled up at his mother, glad that she was home, even if she was just going to fall asleep for the rest of the day.

"Did anything happen? Is everything all right?" her tone was slightly worried but Roxas ignored it.

"Every things fine, I just don't wanna go" he buried himself deeper into his bed.

"Alright" she said after a minute "I'll go ahead and call the school, tell them that you aren't feeling well today. Just don't make this a regular thing, alright?" She sounded a bit cross on the last bit.

He nodded and closed his eyes again.

"Nope!" she slapped his shoulder lightly and held out her pinky. "Pinky promise first, and then you can go back to sleep".

He smiled and pulled his hand up to meet hers.

"Pinky promise" he murmured, wrapping his finger around hers before pulling away and burying his head back into his pillow.

She left his side "I'll make the call now, and I'll be asleep after that. If you need anything just wake me up".

Roxas mumbled something inaudible into his pillow and his mother just closed the door, leaving the boy to sleep in.

It took him only a few minutes for him to fall back asleep.

.

Finally the blonds body decided it had had enough sleep and he climbed, none to eager, out of the bed and put his feet onto the tan carpet that covered his room.

For a moment he just stood there, looking almost as if he fallen back asleep once more, before he shuffled his feet towards his desk, where he plopped into the chair and wiggled the computer mouse.

He rubbed his eyes while the machine warmed up.

Closing his eyes and stretching his arms up into the air he gave a sigh of contentment and his eyes opened once more.

He stared at the screen for a moment, it wasn't empty of windows as it should have been, but rather an IM that had likely been sent the night before was waiting for him. His messenger alerted him that it was from a person not added in his contacts.

Roxas read over the message, all it said was 'hey', before clicking the 'x' button without even looking at the senders name.

**A/N: Boring chapter is, indeed, very boring.**

**And Roxas has an OC mother, her name is Roxanne :3 and Roxas was named after her...just because I think it's cute...**


	4. Of Sally and her Husband

**A/N: There's nothing like drinking sweet tea, reading some Stephen King and then sitting down to write a little fanfiction :).**

**And I'd like to thank everyone for all of the story adds and the reviews I've received, you guys and gals are far too kind!**

Already the afternoon had somehow slipped out from under Roxas' fingers, true he had woken up quite late, but somewhere along the lines it had taken him nearly two and a half hours to shower, dress and eat a banana.

Now, at almost 3 o'clock, he found himself sitting atop the clock tower overlooking the train station. He was dressed in a hoodie that had once been black, but had lightened to a dull gray color with age, blue jeans and old tennis shoes all in preparation for fighting off the chill of the day.

He glanced down at his phone as it buzzed, alerting him to a new message.

'Skl just got out, b there son w/xion' It was from Pence, Roxas smiled to himself and went back to swinging his legs aimlessly over the side of the building.

He wondered briefly how many times the small group had been chased from the perch, countless he was sure. Until finally the station staff had just given up on the teenagers, opting instead for a more legal route and printed up documents regarding something about the station not being responsible if any of them ever fell off.

Roxas smiled at the memory of those papers, how all of them had been forced to sign them one by one.

"Hey, long time no see!"

Roxas looked up and grinned.

"I see you must be getting along with Seifer okay then?"

The taller boy snorted as he sat down to the right of Roxas.

"Get along with that jerk? Puh-leese, what makes you say that?" He threw his school bag off his shoulders and shrugged his shoulders.

Roxas returned his gaze out to the platform a few stories below them.

"Well, you get more detentions than I do for fighting with that guy, I figure if you were the first one here means you don't have a detention, which means you are at least tolerating him."

Hayner made a gagging noise and frowned. "It's not that I'm 'tolerating' him or anything. I've just been extra good this past week at not getting caught picking fights."

Roxas opened his mouth to say something back when a muffled THUMP sounded from the open door that led up to the towers ledge.

"Ow! Pence, watch where you're going!"

"S-Sorry!"

Xion was the first the emerge from the stairs, stepping gingerly on her right foot.

"Pence, got me pretty good back there" she gestured towards the stairs where Pence had just showed his face.

"I'm sorry!" he said again, this time around a mouthful of sea salt ice cream, the blue treat in his hand already half eaten.

Xion waved her hand "whatever, Pence, don't worry about it" she mumbled as she threw her bag next to Hayners and sat down to the boys right.

Pence put his bag down a bit more carefully before sitting down next to Roxas.

"It looks like it might rain" he dully noted before taking another bite of his ice cream. The other three looked at the sky Roxas and Xion nodded in reply while Hayner released a long winded "yeeeeeeeep".

"Heeeeeey!" All four of them looked down simultaneously to see a dark haired girl waving enthusiastically up at them.

"I'll be up in a second!" Olette cried up before disappearing through the glass doors directly underneath.

"Should we all use the other exit and see if we can psyche her out?" Hayner grinned mischievously.

Roxas laughed "No, that'd be a cruel thing to do to her, maybe we'll do it to Xion sometime instead"

"Hey!" the girl protested before laughing with the others.

"I'm here!" Olette announced herself, breathing a bit harder than normal.

"Jeez, you didn't have to run all the way up here. It's not like we were gonna leave if you didn't make it in record time" Hayner smiled at the brunette.

"Well, you see" she seated herself near Pence. "If I hadn't rushed up here in time to supervise all you children I'm sure one of you would have managed to plummet to your imminent..."

She paused a looked down to get an idea of just how far up they were before continuing.

"Injury" she finished simply.

Roxas laughed "Thank you, Mother Olette" he teased. She stuck her tongue out at him.

"Anything for baby Roxas" she replied.

A slight blush covered the blondes face as the others laughed.

He stared down at his hands and smiled to himself, it seemed like it had been far too long since he had enjoyed himself this much. As if somehow burning those pieces of paper had not only started to help him move on, but had done the job completely. How long had it been since he been with his friends like this? At least a few months, he had kept denying their invitations to meet places because to him, it just didn't feel right without Axel.

But now, he felt relieved, even good about being here. Forget Axel, he had been the one that had left, there was no reason for Roxas to save him his spot in the small group.

"It's been so long since we've all been together like this!" Xion stated, stretching her arms above her head.

"You know what that means?" she continued, a smiled growing on her face.

"Roxas" she pointed to the boy. "You do the honors" she gestured to the small mass of people entering and exiting the station below them.

He instantly picked up on her meaning and stared down for a moment at the heads below them.

"That one" he finally picked out a young looking man who stood in the middle of the area, trying to sort out all of his papers while also keeping a hold on the drink in his left hand.

"Aw, he's going to go see his girlfriend" Olette chimed in first.

"Who's cheating on him with a married man" Hayner called out second.

"Hmmm, it appears this married man also has a warrant for his arrest for the murder of Sally Mutherfudger in a place very far from here" Xion commented.

"Sally was a good wife though, she often stayed up late to eat dinner with her husband" Pence said in between licking his fingers clean of his now gone ice cream.

"But staying up late wasn't enough for her husband, he wanted her to not only make dinners for him, but to clean the house as well. Of which she failed in doing many times...which is why he killed her." Roxas finished off.

The next hour passed like this, each of them taking turns in picking out a victim to the game, in which the teens would make up some absurd story about the people involved in their life. Olette and Pence often coming up with nicer, and more realistic, ideas; while Xion and Hayner brought in the macabre. Roxas balanced it all out with a dose of something odd and unbelievable.

The game paused when they all felt the first drops of rain falling.

"Uh-oh!" Xion leapt up from her spot and grabbed her bag, the others quickly following suit.

Hayner closed the door behind him as they all entered the stairwell, laughing at each other as they walked down the steps and back out into the station, oblivious to the sign on the wall stating that only employees were allowed onto the stairwell they had just clamored down.

One of the baggage handlers frowned at them while a ticket checker nearby smiled at the group before turning back to the traveler she was helping.

Hayner clapped a hand on Roxas' back before addressing everyone.

"You guys want to come over to my place until the weather clears?" His offer was quickly taken up by Olette and Pence while Xion and Roxas declined.

"See you two later!" Olette called from the glass doors as she followed the two boys out into the rain, which was now pouring down.

Xion waved goodbye and Roxas nodded.

"You seem to be doing better" Xion suddenly said once the doors had completely shut behind the trio.

He nodded "I did some...reflecting, last night."

Xion didn't ask about it, only smiled.

"It's good to have you back, Roxas" she smiled before turning away, pushing through the doors and heaving her bag over her head as she ran through the rain.

He watched until he could no longer see her.

Pulling his hood over his disheveled hair he took a deep breath and headed out into the downpour.

**A/N: Long chapter. But hopefully more interesting as Roxas ACTUALLY does have friends. Which is surprising...at least to me. Stupid blond ;P**

**Also, I just found out Axel's somebodies name, which is good because it's the name I had arranged for upcoming chapters and it'll just happen to coincide a bit with future chapters. (I won't type it out here in case anyone feels I spoiled it...even if it is a fairly easy one to figure out, you only really have two good options to go with and one of those options is just silly, and one...isn't so goofy xD).**

**And yes, I know Xion is pretty OOC but I honestly wasn't really willing to deal with a super quiet character and kinda wanted someone to balance out with Hayner a bit...or at least the balance makes sense to me. **


	5. Of Dr Phil and his studio audience

**It's been an age and a half since I've last updated. I'd like to say that I was kidnapped and kept at the bottom of a well while being yelled at to send the lotion back up in the basket...but that totally didn't happen. Nor was I targeted by a cannibal. Instead I've just been busy with school and...actually forgot this existed for a little while. .**

**Other than that: YAY AXEL! :D**

**.**

Shortly after the group of teens had all left the station a train rattled across the tracks and came to a screeching halt at one of the three platforms. Unlike the trains that belonged to the Twilight Towns station this one looked fairly worn down, rusted in many places and once vibrant colors had been dulled by weather and age. Obviously it came for a poorer district probably quite far away.

One of the workers commented on this being the last train arrival to the station that day to his buddy and both of them gave a sigh of relief, glad to be able to go home within the next hour.

The doors slid open, with some difficulty, and weary looking passengers started to walk off. Not nearly as many people as the earlier trains brought, in fact less than half of that. Only 14 people lethargically walked off the train and towards the luggage claim. Just as a worker was preparing to climb on to make sure everyone had disembarked another couple climbed off.

A tall red-headed man who was quickly followed by a much younger, sleepy looking, blond girl. He stopped just as they got off and knelt down to meet her eyes. Smiling he watched as she yawned and rubbed her eyes with tiny fists.

"You alright?" He looked very tired himself, but it was obvious to anyone who might be looking that he was intent on taking care of the young girl and wasn't likely to sleep on the job.

She nodded and stood still as he fixed the white ribbon in her hair.

"That's good" he replied, standing once more and taking her hand. "You're going to see your new home soon, you excited?" He started to lead her towards baggage claim, where the other passengers had all gone.

"Yes" she replied quietly, her small hands tightening around his.

.

Roxas eagerly twirled the noodles onto his fork before shoving the spaghetti into his mouth.

His mother just smiled a little at her son before turning back to her own food and consuming it in a much more mannered way.

"So you hung out with Hayner today?" She asked, breaking the comfortable silence between the two.

He nodded his head enthusiastically before shoving more food into his mouth.

"Jeez, kid, you keep eating like that you'll be fat in no time!" She laughed when she noticed he had slowed down.

"No! No!" She insisted.

"Go ahead, and keep eating like that...besides, the faster I get you nice and plump, the faster I can throw you in the oven, Thanksgiving isn't that far away and I need enough to feed the family." She laughed out loud at the look her son gave her.

"If if counts for anything" he finally spoke "I've only had a banana to eat so far today".

Roxanne shook her head "You should make sure you're eating something that'll actually sustain you".

Roxas shrugged and returned to his meal.

Somehow his mother always managed to make dinner something delicious. Right now all they were eating was store made meat sauce with undercooked noodles, a small addition of a few odd ingredients that his mother always added somehow all made it a meal worth eating as your last.

He glanced over at her as she stopped midbite to glance at her watch.

She frowned slightly and stood up "Well, looks like that time again" she sighed in that way Roxas recognized. A way that he too sighed during the summer break when he had a job. The 'I hate my job, sometimes' sigh that only went away when the paycheck came in.

She put her plate in the sink and grabbed her bag from the chair Roxas' father would normally occupy.

"This is the last night shift this week, I'll see you tomorrow after school, alright?"

He nodded and allowed her to plant a small kiss on top of his head, he listened as she went through the front door, slamming it shut behind her like she always did.

And then he was alone.

He finished his meal and took his plate to the sink, washing the few dishes that were present he put them in the drying rack and wiped his hands dry onto his pants.

For a brief moment he though about the homework he had neglected doing last night and considered doing it. But then he shook his head and headed towards the living room and the expensive sound system connected to the expensive tv.

Settling down into the soft cushions of the couch he pressed the power button on the remote.

"Ugh!" was all he said when Dr. Phil suddenly appeared on the screen. Quickly he pressed the guide button and switched to something much easier to tolerate.

Fake laughter from a live studio audience filled the living room as a series of funny videos was aired. At first Roxas was unimpressed by it, but as the videos continued playing he found himself more and more amused by it, sometimes laughing right along with the electronic voices.

Time passed slowly like this, Roxas occasionally changing the channel until he found something interesting to laugh at or just become engrossed in. He wasn't aware of when it happened but he fell asleep sometime during the button pressing, curled up at one end of the couch, the remote eventually slipping from his grasp only to fall to the floor below.


End file.
